Improving medication compliance is a universal healthcare goal in patient care. However, the process of ensuring medicament compliance is an ongoing struggle that requires strict adherence to a routine dosage regime. Difficulties in managing daily medication regime may be exacerbated by age and physical disabilities, such as visual impairment. The vast majority of individuals who generally have medication compliance and adherence problems due to visual impairments are elderly patients. Visual impairment typically exacerbates the difficulties in explaining medication regimens to this patient population, thus resulting in non-compliance or self-care error. In some instances, the elderly, blind or visually impaired face severe and sometimes dangerous challenges in managing their own self-care and medication schedule.
According to the American Foundation for the Blind, estimates of the number of people with difficulty seeing (even when using one's usual eyeglasses) range from as low as 7 million to as high as 20 million people (all ages). There is greater consistency in estimates of the number of people with very severe visual impairment, which is estimated as approximately 1.5 million to 2 million people. When used correctly, prescribed medications have the potential of greatly improving the health and independence of individuals who are blind or visually impaired.
Access to drug information, including drug labels and usage instructions, is an important component to improving medication compliance. As the number of prescribed or recommended medications and/or vitamins and supplements increases for any individual patient, the difficulty in managing the proper dosing regime also increases. Prescriptions differ in quantity, daily dosages and other requirements, such as a medication requiring concurrent food intake. As a patient's need for drug information increases, so to does their need for assistance in the management of their intake regimes. In most cases, blind or visually-impaired individuals are generally assisted by a caregiver, who instructs these individuals on how to take their medications and other counseling information provided by the pharmacists and doctors.
In the absence of a caregiver, providing drug information to the visually impaired population is practically challenging. A number of medication compliance systems have been developed that attempt to address the challenge assisting visually impaired patients in managing their daily regime of prescription drugs, vitamins, etc. Some solutions do not account for the capabilities of the majority of the patient population. For instance, products available in Braille are not useful to older Americans who may not have developed visual impairment issues until later in life, and thus, never learned Braille. For example, macular degeneration is a common problem among millions of Americans 65 or older.
In order to deal with the problem of providing drug information to the visually impaired patients, a number of non-technical measures are employed. Most often, the visually impaired patient population must rely on verbal counseling from a caregiver, pharmacist or doctor for the proper instruction. Where visual impairment is not yet severe, a magnifying glass may be employed to identity the appropriate medication for purchase or for self-administration. Additionally, patients try themselves to overcome their disability by trying to memorize the shape of the pill, and the way it feels in their hands, because the print is too small and all the bottles are of similar size and shape. The chances of error are great where those living alone must often rely on the memory, reading skills, and good graces of the next visitor to help them if they become confused by the passage of time and the need to memorize other information.
Technological measures have also been employed to address this problem. For example, alarms and beepers are used to remind a patient when it is time to medicate. The main problem with conventional drug compliance devices is a lack of real time interactivity from the patient, the patient's doctor and the pharmacist, with regard to the patient's drug compliance.
Another problem with conventional drug compliance devices is that the devices are not wireless, hence they are not portable, and require the patient's active input to operate. Or, if they are wireless, they require specialized dispensing containers, and cannot identify medication not previously identified and properly placed within the specialized container. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0155780 A1, to Rapchak, et al., discloses a medication compliance system for dispensing medication to a patient. This Rapchak, et al. system is comprised generally of a dispensing unit 16, a cell phone 14, and a host 20, as illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. As illustrated in FIGS. 1-3, the Rapchak, et al. system physically controls the dispensing of medication 116. In particular, the “dispenser is remotely controlled by the host 20” (see paragraph [0027]). Thus, the Rapchak, et al. system requires a remotely controlled dispensing unit 16, limiting the scope and availability of the system, and preventing the use of current medication containers dispensed regularly in pharmacies.
In another example described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0079996 A1, to Benouali, a unit dosage monitoring and reporting device and system is provided, which again include a specialized “dispenser shell formed with dose compartments”. As clearly illustrated in FIGS. 1-6, the medicine is prepackaged in the specialized dispenser shell of Benouali, and is dispensed via wireless command. However, as with the system of Rapchak, et al., described above, the prior system of Benouali is unable to identify medicine in the forms of pills or capsules that are not prepackaged within the dispenser, and is unable to be utilized with conventional medicine containers.
A final problem with conventional drug compliance devices is that they are expensive and the cost for the device is borne by the patient/consumer. As discussed in detail above, the conventional medicine dispensing and compliance systems generally require specialized dispensers, which are usually both expensive and not easily obtainable. Further, these dispensers must generally be loaded with a users medicine, which requires a user to arrange for same, a difficult task.
In order to overcome the above disadvantages associated with these conventional systems, it is the object of the present invention to provide a practical system for communicating medicine dosage and intake instructions to patient utilizing a device that is equipped the radio frequency identification (RFID) capabilities, such that the RFID capabilities enables the user to identify the proper medicine and triggers audible instructions for use of that medicine to play for the user.
The inventors of the present invention have recognized that by providing radio frequency identification (RFID) enabled mobile devices, such as mobile phones, new markets can be developed that heretofore have been untapped by the wireless communications industry. As one example, the present invention was developed utilizing typical consumer product mobile phones as a platform for RFID technology.
It is another object of the present invention to permit visually-impaired patients to identify medication and receive dosage and intake instructions via RFID enabled mobile phones. Conventional systems are generally unable to provide
It is a further object of the present invention to assist patient populations that are typically non-compliant with regard to medication regimes due to some other physical or mental ailment, such as memory loss or Alzheimer's, to become compliant with their dosing regime by monitoring their dosage and providing verbal warnings/instructions concerning same.
It is final object of the present invention to provide a wireless system for communicating medicine dosage and intake instructions to patients utilizing conventional medicine containers, with RFID tags attached thereto or in communication therewith, thus eliminating the need for specialized medication dispensers.